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The Mysterious Taos Hum

There are times when we encounter weird things – things that we fail to explain and the Taos Hum is one such phenomenon that grabbed worldwide attention. Located in New Mexico is a small town known as Taos. In this town, many people reported of hearing a mysterious low-frequency acoustic humming. We said ‘many people’ and not ‘all people’, which means that the humming was not audible to everyone.

No one could figure out the source or the origin of the hum and people who could hear the sound reported of side effects which included:

Loss of libido or sex drive.

Increased pressure in ears.

Abrupt nosebleeds.

Disorientation.

Sleep disturbances to complete insomnia.

Dizziness and headaches.

Apart from the physical side effects, people even reported of psychological disequilibrium. Some reported that they felt completely singled out.

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These mysterious sound became popular as the Taos Hum. Interestingly, Taos is not the only place where people reported of low-frequency sounds. People all over the world have reported of hearing unexplained sounds which included squeals of high pitch all the way down to faint rumble. Interestingly, sources of some of these reported sounds were identified, some turned out to be hoax while others still remain unexplained till this day. Taos Hum is one that has no explanation and neither can anyone prove it as hoax.

Several explanations pop up to explain these acoustic phenomena such as aliens, meteors, secret projects by governments and even insects but no explanation sounds satisfactory. As far as Taos Hum is concerned, some of the popular theories that have been put forward to explain the phenomenon include:

It is the communication among living rocks. Living rocks? Really?

It is the sound made by lost spirits attempting to cross over to the other side.

It is the sunspots’ inter-solar echo.

It is the sound generated by planetary alignment.

It is the sound of alien communication attempts.

Here is how the hum sounds like (note that is sound was collected by Dr. Tom Moir while researching on Auckland hum but some say that it is only a synthesized version since no one has been able to successfully record the sound till date):

Back in 1993, the citizens of Taos who suffered and even those who did not suffer because of the hum decided to put forward an investigation petition in front of American Congress. The allegation put forward was that the hum was produced by some covert or open military activity. The plea was heard and more than a dozen of scientists were sent to Taos to investigate the phenomenon. Personnel from Los Alamos National Laboratory (the place where the first atom bomb was built) and Phillips Air Force Laboratory participated in the investigation and the final reports were penned down by Mr. Joe Mullins and Mr. Horace Poteet from University of New Mexico and Sandia National Laboratories respectively.

The report could not draw any conclusion. The report stated that the hum almost always began abruptly, was barely audible and had pulse fluctuations as reported by the hum hearers. Several tests were conducted in open and controlled conditions to isolate the source of the hum the investigators could not find any known acoustic signals or seismic activities that could possibly cause the hum. The report further stated that the hum was not just pent up in Taos and that it was a known phenomena all over the world North America, Europe and United Kingdom reporting most of the events. According to the report, some of the hum hearers can hear the hum in different places while others fail to hear it in different locations.

Possibly the military communication technology ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) has some connection with the hum.

The hum may be caused by infrasound which has been tested as a weapon system and is known for causing remarkably similar side effects as reported by hum hearers.

Today some experts simply blow about the hum by referring it as some kind of auditory hallucination or some kind of auditory disorder that is yet to be discovered (note that the hum is not the same as tinnitus or constant ringing of ears).

We really don’t know whether the Taos Hum is real or not. Probably it is real and we are yet to understand the mystery. Many things that we know of today were once mysteries such as the lightning but science eventually managed to unravel those mysteries. We may have to wait a little longer.

Founder and Chief Editor of Facts Legend, Sankalan believes that information should be free. He is a dreamer and loves reading, writing, traveling and above all, sleeping. Sometimes he gets really confused about things happening in life but then again, he manages to get things back on track. He practices Tai Chi whenever he gets time. Slightly unsocial by nature, he still manages to get along with people pretty well. He hates politics and absolutely hates people who like to judge others.